Hundreds of local Labour members have called on their party to reconsider parachuting in a candidate after the Kemptown MP was unexpectedly barred from standing.
More than 200 people have signed a petition started by the Kemptown and Peacehaven Constituency Labour Party (CLP) ahead of a meeting where new candidate Chris Ward’s selection is set to be rubber stamped.
Mr Ward was announced as the new candidate last week, just a day after the previous MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle was suspended over unspecified allegations dating from 2016.
Journalist Michael Crick, who has been chronicling all the main parties’ selections, tweeted on Thursday afternoon that he was likely to get the seat – before another potential candidate. Nancy Platts, had even been interviewed.
Ms Platts, who has previously been leader of Brighton and Hove City Council and a parliamentary candidate in the same seat, called for an investigation into the fairness of the process.
“This purging of loyal members in favour of subservient candidates reflects a party more concerned with power than principles.”
The row over Labour’s last minute deselection of general election candidates continues to rumble on. In a new development, seven Labour Councillors in Slough have quit the party over, among other things, the decision to block Faiza Shaheen from standing as a Labour candidate.
In a letter published on June 3, the seven Councillors cite a number of reasons for their decision including concerns over the democratic processes in the Labour Party. They go on to write that the deselection of Shaheen and the treatment of Diane Abbott “highlight the institutional racism within the party”.
They added: “This purging of loyal members in favour of subservient candidates reflects a party more concerned with power than principles. Slough [Constituency Labour Party], predominantly composed of BAME members, has faced threads of deselection for speaking out against injustices in Gaza and criticising Israel.”
Their letter concludes by saying: “We have exhausted every party mechanism to ensure our residents’ concerns were heard at both local and national levels. In light of these insurmountable barriers, we, the rank-and-file members, are left with no option but to resign. We must stay true to our values and conscience, even if the party we once believed in has abandoned them.”
There have been six prime ministers since this country last made sustained progress on reducing poverty
Nearly one million people in the UK are only £10 a week away from poverty, a study has found, in what has been called a “stain on the moral conscience of our nation”.
Analysis from poverty charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has revealed that alongside the estimated 14.2 million people in poverty in the UK, further millions are “teetering on the edge” and unable to afford essentials.
The JRF’s research found that just under a million people, including 200,000 children, are now within £10 a week from the poverty line.
An additional 3.2 million people in the UK – equivalent to the population of Wales – are only £40 a week from deep poverty.
The charity added that seven million households across the country had gone without essentials, like showers, toiletries or adequate clothing, in the last six months – or had gone hungry, or cut or skipped meals in the last 30 days.
For those already in poverty, large numbers are close to “deep” or “very deep” poverty lines, meaning they are living on incomes of less than 50% or 40% of the UK average.
Around six million people were reported as living in very deep poverty in 2022/23, which is 1.5 million more than two decades ago.
Politicians are missing a ‘level of urgency’ on poverty
The JRF’s CEO Paul Kissack called on the government to act on rising poverty levels, as well as those “teetering on the edge” of poverty, telling whoever wins the general election on 4 July to “make reversing this dismal trend a priority”.
“There have been six prime ministers since this country last made sustained progress on reducing poverty,” he explained, referencing when poverty last fell consistently in the UK, between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005 under Tony Blair.
“During that time we’ve seen a sustained rise in the number of people in deep poverty, with hardship and destitution growing even faster.”
He added: “Our political leaders must be specific and ambitious about how they will tackle poverty. But so far there hasn’t been anything like the level of urgency from either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer that we need to see. Pointing to future growth as a panacea just won’t cut it.
“Tonight’s (4 June) debate is a chance for both leaders to set out their plans and demonstrate they are serious about addressing hardship. Failure to act is a political and moral choice ≠ and one they should expect to be judged on.”
📊 Our latest #UKPoverty report launched this morning.
🔍 14.4 million people were living in poverty in 2021/22 – and our analysis shows that millions of people would need thousands of pounds just to escape poverty.
A truck is used to evacuate the International Medical Corps American field hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on June 2, 2024. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
“Public health concerns are beyond crisis levels” in the areas where Palestinians have been forced to shelter, and “the sounds, the smells, the everyday life, are horrific and apocalyptic,” a U.N. official said.
More than 1 million Palestinians have fled Rafah as the city comes under a continued Israeli assault, forcing many to shelter in badly damaged buildings in the nearby city of Khan Younis, according to the United Nations.
The assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, has left the displaced in “unspeakable” conditions, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on social media. Approximately 1.7 million displaced people are now in Khan Younis and “Gaza Middle Areas,” according to UNRWA.
Forced displacement has pushed over 1 million people away from Rafah.
Thousands of families now shelter in damaged & destroyed facilities in Khan Younis, where @UNRWA keeps providing essential services despite increasing challenges. Conditions are unspeakable.#CeasefireNOWpic.twitter.com/qRVnWmfZSr
Khan Younis, which saw sustained fighting earlier in the war, still does not appear to be a safe zone: Israeli military vehicles entered the city in recent hours after advancing to two towns just east of Khan Younis with “heavy gunfire and artillery shelling,” Al Jazeerareported.
Since early May, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has issued evacuation orders for parts of Rafah, telling people to go to an “expanded humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi, located roughly 12 miles from the city.
Israeli forces subsequently launched attacks on designated safe zones, including in Al-Mawasi. Two strikes killed 45 and 21 people last week, mostly women and children. The first of the attacks, known as the “tent massacre,” was carried out with U.S. weapons, later analysis showed.
Many of the people fleeing Rafah are having to move for at least the second time during the war. Roughly 1 million Palestinians who’d been displaced elsewhere had gone to Rafah for refuge earlier in the war. They began to leave Rafah nearly four weeks ago as Israeli started its assault on the city. Before the war, Rafah’s population was about 275,000, but the governorate reached a population of 1.4 million by February as Israel ordered Palestianians to move there from northern Gaza. This meant squeezing more than half of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million into one governorate, NPR reported.
More than 18,500 pregnant women have been forced to leave Rafah, while about 10,000 pregnant women remain in the city in “desperate conditions,” the U.N. reported.
“They’re exhausted, traumatized, dehydrated, and malnourished,” the U.N. Population Fund wrote on social media of pregnant women dealing with “Israel’s terrifying military operation in Rafah.”
“Pregnant women in Gaza are living in an unrelenting nightmare,” the agency added.
After successive operations last month, Israel now controls the entire Gaza-Egypt border. Humanitarian corridors have shut down, with many agencies and aid groups pausing operations in Rafah due to lack of supplies and security concerns.
“We are living and working precariously in the south,” Matthew Hollingsworth said, World Food Program (WFP) country director in Palestine, said late last week, the U.N. reported. The areas where the displaced have been forced to shelter are nightmarish, he said.
“Public health concerns are beyond crisis levels” and “the sounds, the smells, the everyday life, are horrific and apocalyptic,” Hollingsworth added.
More than half of the structures in the Gaza Strip have been damaged, destroyed, or possibly destroyed during the eight-month Israeli assault, the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) concluded, in findings released Monday.
🏚️ According to our analysis, we identified 36,591 destroyed structures, 16,513 severely damaged, 47,368 moderately damaged, and 36,825 possibly damaged structures. A total of 137,297 structures, or about 55% of the total in Gaza, are affected. #DamageAssessment#SatelliteImagerypic.twitter.com/UZjh64o0j7
The mass displacement from Rafah continued as the Biden administration sought to arrange a cease-fire after after being pressured for months to end its military support for Israel’s onslaught. President Joe Biden called for an end to the war on Friday and backed a roadmap to a deal, which drew praise from Palestine defenders—the Council on American-Islamic Relations called it “long overdue” and a “positive step”—as well as criticism that it did not address the root causes of the conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the deal would not stop the war, which could not end until “total victory” had been achieved, according to Israeli National News.
